Page 25 of Alexander: Alexander's Story

I hear the scratch of some nocturnal beast. There’s the hoot of an owl on the prowl, and a gentle breeze rustles the tree limbs, sending pine needles to the ground, landing like glitter on the frost.

I’ve never wanted so badly to reach out and feel everything. The cold moss, the frosted forest floor, the pine cones littered about. I want to absorb every sensory detail: the sight, the smell, the sounds, the feel.

A sense of belonging permeates me at a molecular level. It’s something clicking into place, breathing frigid air, bathing in moonlight, with nothing but trees as companions.Herefeels like home in a way no other place has. Like when I was born, there’d been a crossing of wires, a mistake in the divine order, and instead of being born to a loving family who lived in the mountains, I was birthed into a desert of epic proportions.Everything was dry and drained of life there; people doing anything they could to get a glimpse oftheir forestor life beyond.

Whatever drug they could find, whatever hit they could take that gave them a fraction of what this forest is giving me. It’s an epiphany to finally understand why they didit. But I’m still convinced I was never meant for the desert. I’m meant to be in a place like this.

I inhale, and Alex slows his gait, turning to make sure I’m fine. We’ve been walking in near silence for 15 minutes, and I anticipate hitting the cove any second.

“You good?”Never better.

“Yeah,” is all I say in return.

At last, we reach a small clearing with another path forking off in a different direction and, in the middle, a massive boulder.

We climb up the large boulder, and when we reach the top, I’m rendered speechless and breathless by the view of navy blue water lapping at the shore. Moonlight hits the water and splinters, splaying itself across the lake. Gray puffs of clouds drift listlessly across the sky, and it’s all like a dream.

I sit down on the cold gray stone, and surprisingly, Alexander joins me. I sit criss-cross applesauce, and he sits with his knees bent and his arms slung over the top of them.

We sit like this for probably ten minutes in complete silence. Together. Until eventually, it feels like he’s not himself and I’m not me. We’re just two people with no history and no past. And nothing laid out before us. Nowhere to be and no future. All that exists is life as it happens, in this moment, in this hidden world of ours.

“My dad used to take me hunting. It was always really early. Like this time of morning.” I look at Alex, who is talking but zoned out, looking at the water. “I hated going until I got really good at it.”

I keep quiet, curious why he would share this with me.

“I got good at it because I had to. Every time I missed, he would shoot me with an air rifle.” I gasp but manage to keep the sound internal. “I got good because I thought he’d be scared of me if I was better than him. But he wasn’t. He just got jealous instead.”

Jesus.

I scoot closer, trying to decide how to say something without saying anything because talking on my part feels wrong. This is Alex’s time to share something in our world, and he can have it. This morning is his.

So I scoot closer, but I stay silent. And while my instinct is to crawl into his lap and stroke his face, I just let my close presence provide comfort this time.

I watch him, memorizing the lines of his face, the way his beard comes in thick and to the exact right spot below his cheekbones. The broad shoulders that carry invisible weights. Beautiful to the point of fracture. A fracturing because a soul claimed this man, then turned around and gave it away. A shattering over parents who inflicted torture. A break, dirty and ragged and beautiful. That’s what I see when I memorize his face.

“I would have regretted it, Emma. I’m so sorry.”I know.

All I say is, “I’m sorry, too.”

SEVEN

Alex

When the sun breaks over the mountains on the eastern side of the lake, I stand slowly. Feeling…different. Better. Not happy, but not like I might die under the weight of my mistakes.

And she did it.

She stands with me, giving me her softest smile that shows no teeth, just a turn of the lips that shifts the dusting of freckles across the apples of her cheeks.

The sun’s rays dance off her curls as we turn to head back towards the house. This time with her leading, I watch her ass sway as she traverses the uneven ground.

Torture.

It would be agony living like this. It wasn’t the plan to open up to her. To be close to her. But at the moment, it’s all I want. To be close to her.

But I’m not supposed to be.

I’m supposed to be mourning Jess. The guilt claws its way back to front and center. With each step we take away from the cove, the weight of that guilt grows. It feels as if by the time weget back to the house, this weight will be a tangible thing upon my chest. Worn like a scarlet letter.